Among the hundreds of colourful characters you'll meet the genius engine builder, Frank Osborne; Billy Assu the magnanimous Kwakiutl Chief who threw a party for 2,000 people; the Schnarr daughters who kept cougars for pets and Jack Myer the pistol-packing, dog-kicking bootlegger who hailed from the badlands of North Dakota and fatally shot a man in a shack on Read Island.